Renault unveils new electric car range
Renault has unveiled a brace of new battery electric vehicles - a Mégane concept and a Dacia model - and committed itself to become a zero-CO2 impact manufacturer by 2050.
Claiming that Renault’s decade-long experience with electric vehicles such as the Zoe and its 300,000 EV sales to date has given Renault “clear competitive advantage”, Luca de Meo, newly appointed chief executive of the Renault Group, introduced the Mégane eVision concept, which is a family hatchback based on the company’s new CMF-EV platform.
“With the thinnest battery on the market, a 4.21-metre compact body offering the roominess of a C-segment vehicle, Mégane eVision is a masterpiece of packaging,” said de Meo. “This is just the beginning; a whole new generation of innovation-packed electric vehicles is to come.”
When the electric Mégane goes on sale in 2021, it's slated to have a range of 280 miles courtesy of its 63kWh battery, with fast charging of up to 130kW.
The Dacia Spring is a production car, a 3.73m-long supermini, slated for sales to car sharing companies by next summer and to the public by the autumn.
With it’s 44bhp/92lb ft motor and 28.6kWh lithium-ion battery, Spring has a WLTP range of 140 miles and is aimed at urban dwellers, with an 800-litre capacity panel van version on the way.
Recharging times are quoted at five hours on a 7.4kW household wall box and less than an hour for an 80 per cent charge on a 30kW DC charger, which is the maximum current the car will accept.
Like a lot of its rivals, Renault appears to have accepted that battery electric propulsion is the main way ahead for passenger cars, although de Meo was insistent that the company’s hydrogen research which has been used in commercial vehicles “will continue”.
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